A Nobleman's Nest Part 9

"He need not,"--replied the old man, with a half-childlike smile.

Two days later, Feodor Ivanitch set out for the town, to the Kalitins.

XXIV

He found them all at home, but he did not immediately announce to them his intention: he wished, first, to have a talk alone with Liza. Chance aided him: they were left alone together in the drawing-room. They fell into conversation: she had succeeded in getting used to him,--and, in general, she was not shy of any one. He listened to her, looked her straight in the face, and mentally repeated Lemm's words, and agreed with him. It sometimes happens, that two persons who are already acquainted, but not intimate, suddenly and swiftly draw near to each other in the course of a few minutes,--and the consciousness of this approach is immediately reflected in their glances, in their friendly, quiet smiles, in their very movements. Precisely this is what took place with Lavretzky and Liza. "So that's what he is like," she thought, gazing caressingly at him; "so that's what thou art like," he said to himself also. And therefore, he was not greatly surprised when she, not without a slight hesitation, however, announced to him, that she had long had it in her heart to say something to him, but had been afraid of annoying him.

"Have no fear; speak out,"--he said, and halted in front of her.

Liza raised her clear eyes to his.

"You are so kind,"--she began, and, at the same time, she said to herself:--"'yes, he really is kind' ... you will pardon me, but I ought not to speak of this to you ... but how could you ... why did you separate from your wife?"

Lavretzky shuddered, glanced at Liza, and seated himself beside her.

"My child," he began,--"please do not touch that wound; your hands are tender, but nevertheless I shall suffer pain."

"I know,"--went on Liza, as though she had not heard him:--"she is culpable toward you, I do not wish to defend her; but how is it possible to put asunder that which G.o.d has joined together?"

"Our convictions on that point are too dissimilar, Lizaveta Mikhailovna,"--said Lavretzky, rather sharply;--"we shall not understand each other."

Liza turned pale; her whole body quivered slightly; but she did not hold her peace.

"You ought to forgive,"--she said softly:--"if you wish to be forgiven."

"Forgive!"--Lavretzky caught her up:--"Ought not you first to know for whom you are pleading? Forgive that woman, take her back into my house,--her,--that empty, heartless creature! And who has told you, that she wishes to return to me? Good heavens, she is entirely satisfied with her position.... But what is the use of talking about it! Her name ought not to be uttered by you. You are too pure, you are not even in a position to understand what sort of a being she is."

"Why vilify her?"--said Liza, with an effort. The trembling of her hands became visible. "It was you yourself who abandoned her, Feodor Ivanitch."

"But I tell you,"--retorted Lavretzky, with an involuntary outburst of impatience:--"that you do not know what sort of a creature she is!"

"Then why did you marry her?"--whispered Liza, and dropped her eyes.

Lavretzky sprang up hastily from his seat.

"Why did I marry? I was young and inexperienced then; I was deceived, I was carried away by a beautiful exterior. I did not know women, I did not know anything. G.o.d grant that you may make a happier marriage! But, believe me, it is impossible to vouch for anything."

"And I may be just as unhappy,"--said Liza (her voice began to break): "but, in that case, I must submit; I do not know how to talk, but if we do not submit...."

Lavretzky clenched his fists and stamped his foot.

"Be not angry; forgive me!"--e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Liza, hastily.

At that moment, Marya Dmitrievna entered. Liza rose, and started to leave the room.

"Stop!"--Lavretzky unexpectedly called after her. "I have a great favour to ask of your mother and of you: make me a visit to celebrate my new home. You know, I have set up a piano; Lemm is staying with me; the lilacs are now in bloom; you will get a breath of the country air, and can return the same day,--do you accept?"

Liza glanced at her mother, and Marya Dmitrievna a.s.sumed an air of suffering, but Lavretzky, without giving her a chance to open her mouth, instantly kissed both her hands. Marya Dmitrievna, who was always susceptible to endearments, and had not expected such amiability from "the dolt," was touched to the soul, and consented. While she was considering what day to appoint, Lavretzky approached Liza, and, still greatly agitated, furtively whispered to her: "Thank you, you are a good girl, I am to blame."... And her pale face flushed crimson with a cheerful--bashful smile; her eyes also smiled,--up to that moment, she had been afraid that she had offended him.

"May Vladimir Nikolaitch go with us?"--asked Marya Dmitrievna.

"Certainly,"--responded Lavretzky:--"but would it not be better if we confined ourselves to our own family circle?"

"Yes, certainly, but you see...." Marya Dmitrievna began. "However, as you like," she added.

It was decided to take Lyenotchka and Schurotchka. Marfa Timofeevna declined to make the journey.

"It is too hard for me, my dear,"--she said,--"my old bones ache: and I am sure there is no place at your house where I can spend the night; and I cannot sleep in a strange bed. Let these young people do the gallivanting."

Lavretzky did not succeed in being alone again with Liza; but he looked at her in such a way, that she felt at ease, and rather ashamed, and sorry for him. On taking leave of her, he pressed her hand warmly; when she was left alone, she fell into thought.

XXV

When Lavretzky reached home, he was met on the threshold of the drawing-room by a tall, thin man, in a threadbare blue coat, with frowzy grey side-whiskers, a long, straight nose, and small, inflamed eyes. This was Mikhalevitch, his former comrade at the university. Lavretzky did not recognise him at first, but embraced him warmly as soon as he mentioned his name. They had not seen each other since the Moscow days.

There was a shower of exclamations, of questions; long-smothered memories came forth into the light of day. Hurriedly smoking pipe after pipe, drinking down tea in gulps, and flourishing his long arms, Mikhalevitch narrated his adventures to Lavretzky; there was nothing very cheerful about them, he could not boast of success in his enterprises,--but he laughed incessantly, with a hoa.r.s.e, nervous laugh. A month previously, he had obtained a situation in the private counting-house of a wealthy distiller, about three hundred versts from the town of O * * *, and, on learning of Lavretzky's return from abroad, he had turned aside from his road, in order to see his old friend. Mikhalevitch talked as abruptly as in his younger days, was as noisy and effervescent as ever.

Lavretzky was about to allude to his circ.u.mstances, but Mikhalevitch interrupted him, hastily muttering: "I've heard, brother, I've heard about it,--who could have antic.i.p.ated it?"--and immediately turned the conversation into the region of general comments.

"I, brother,"--he said:--"must leave thee to-morrow; to-day, thou must excuse me--we will go to bed late--I positively must find out what are thy opinions, convictions, what sort of a person thou hast become, what life has taught thee." (Mikhalevitch still retained the phraseology of the '30s.) "So far as I myself am concerned, I have changed in many respects, brother: the billows of life have fallen upon my breast,--who the d.i.c.kens was it that said that?--although, in important, essential points, I have not changed; I believe, as of yore, in the good, in the truth; but I not only believe,--I am now a believer, yes--I am a believer, a religious believer. Hearken, thou knowest that I write verses; there is no poetry in them, but there is truth. I will recite to thee my last piece: in it I have given expression to my most sincere convictions. Listen."--Mikhalevitch began to recite a poem; it was rather long, and wound up with the following lines:

"To new feeling I have surrendered myself with all my heart, I have become like a child in soul: And I have burned all that I worshipped.

I have worshipped all that I burned."

As he declaimed these last two lines, Mikhalevitch was on the verge of tears; slight convulsive twitchings, the signs of deep feeling--flitted across his broad lips, his ugly face lighted up. Lavretzky listened and listened to him; the spirit of contradiction began to stir within him: the ever-ready, incessantly-seething enthusiasm of the Moscow student irritated him. A quarter of an hour had not elapsed, before a dispute flared up between them, one of those interminable disputes, of which only Russians are capable. After a separation of many years' duration, spent in two widely-different spheres, understanding clearly neither other people's thoughts nor their own,--cavilling at words and retorting with mere words, they argued about the most abstract subjects,--and argued as though it were a matter of life and death to both of them: they shouted and yelled so, that all the people in the house took fright, and poor Lemm, who, from the moment of Mikhalevitch's arrival, had locked himself up in his room, became bewildered, and began, in a confused way, to be afraid.

"But what art thou after this? disillusioned?"--shouted Mikhalevitch at one o'clock in the morning.

"Are there any such disillusioned people?"--retorted Lavretzky:--"they are all poor and ill,--and I'll pick thee up with one hand, shall I?"

"Well, if not a _disillusioned_ man, then a _sceptuik_, and that is still worse." (Mikhalevitch's p.r.o.nunciation still smacked of his native Little Russia.) "And what right hast thou to be a sceptic? Thou hast had bad luck in life, granted; that was no fault of thine: thou wert born with a pa.s.sionate, loving soul, and thou wert forcibly kept away from women: the first woman that came in thy way was bound to deceive thee."

"And she did deceive me,"--remarked Lavretzky, gloomily.

"Granted, granted; I was the instrument of fate there,--but what nonsense am I talking?--there's no fate about it; it's merely an old habit of expressing myself inaccurately. But what does that prove?"

"It proves, that they dislocated me in my childhood."

"But set thy joints! to that end thou art a human being, a man; thou hast no need to borrow energy! But, at any rate, is it possible, is it permissible, to erect a private fact, so to speak, into a general law, into an immutable law?"

"Where is the rule?"--interrupted Lavretzky,--"I do not admit...."